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California is clearly missing any notion of a balanced budget being a requirement.

Not a requirement, but no one in gooberment cares because they are taxing us to death. Example: As bad as 2020 was for the economy (mostly because of the pandemic), CA still wound up with a budget surplus of about $19 billion. And that is after the state agencies pissed away something on the order of $31 billion on fraudulent unemployment compensation payments to prison inmates, illegals, dead people, out-of-state residents, and foreigners. State government and most of the state agencies are completely inept, run by thieves and whores (see Gavin Newsom and his Dem minions). And what do they want to do? Increase taxes again. In the most highly taxed state in the nation.